N. T. Rama Rao, 72, Is Dead; Star Status Infused His Politics

N. T. Rama Rao, a former movie star who served three tumultuous terms as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, the southern state, died today at his home in Hyderabad, the state capital. He was 72.

Family members said he had suffered a heart attack.

In death as in life, Mr. Rama Rao was at the center of emotional scenes that could have been written for some of the 330 melodramas that made him a mythic figure among the Telugu-speaking people of Andhra Pradesh.

Huge crowds of overwrought supporters converged on the cricket stadium where Mr. Rao's body was laid out beneath a layer of flowers in the sacred Hindu color, saffron. All over Hyderabad, processions of mourners waved black and saffron flags. At street corners, Hindu priests chanted prayers at impromptu shrines where Mr. Rama Rao's portrait had been placed amid statuettes of Hindu gods and burning candles.

For a man known across India simply as N.T.R., the outpouring would have been especially sweet. In his last weeks, he had been plotting a political comeback in which he envisioned himself being swept back into power on a wave of popular support and recrimination for his political enemies, including a son and a son-in-law who led a family coup that ousted him from his last term as Chief Minister, in August 1995.

In a last interview, with Reuters on Wednesday, Mr. Rama Rao compared himself to Shah Jehan, a 17th-century Mogul emperor who was imprisoned by his son, and predicted that he would gain his revenge against what he called "the backstabbers" in his family, especially his son-in-law and successor as Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao was born in a rural village outside Hyderabad on May 28, 1923. He was one of a number of Indian movie stars who have built populist political careers out of soaring popularity gained from the cinema. With large areas of rural hinterland still desperately poor, open-air movie shows powered by clattering generators still serve as one of the most powerful links with the world beyond the hardscrabble world of buffalos and rice paddies.

After starting up the Telugu Desam Party in 1982, Mr. Rama Rao treated politics as another sound stage.

Best known for his portrayals of Hindu idols, especially Krishna, the warrior-god who is the most celebrated hero of Indian mythology, he ran his early campaigns from what he called his "chariot of valor," a green 1940's Chevrolet pick-up truck. His excursions resembled religious events more than political rallies, and he kept his message simple: "I am with the people."

His opponents criticized him for what they described as empty promises of cheap rice, free school lunches and, in his last campaign in 1994, total prohibition of alcohol. To maintain his demigod aura, he dressed in robes of saffron or white, and encouraged followers to prostrate themselves and touch his feet in the traditional Hindu gesture of fealty.

Mr. Rama Rao's first state government, in 1983, quickly collapsed as a result of factionalism among his followers. In 1985 he won a landslide election and ruled until 1989, when he was defeated following charges of corruption and economic mismanagement. He was back with another landslide victory in 1994, but by then the seeds of his final ouster had been sown.

A widower, he had married for the second time shortly before the 1994 vote, a woman more than 30 years his junior, Lakshmi Parvati, who had approached him with an offer to write his biography.

Within weeks, members of the Rama Rao family were complaining that Lakshmi Parvati had taken the reins of power, appointing her own loyalists to top positions in the government, shutting Mr. Rama Rao off from his own relatives and plotting to suceed him as chief minister.

But Mr. Rama Rao turned a deaf ear, saying that she was a source of what he called "great philosophies." In August 1995, Mr. Naidu and one of Mr. Rama Rao's sons, Harikrishna Rama Rao, led a revolt in the state assembly that ousted Mr. Rama Rao and replaced him with Mr. Naidu.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Rama Rao is survived by six sons and four daughters from his first marriage.

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A version of this obituary; biography appears in print on January 19, 1996, on page B00007 of the National edition with the headline: N. T. Rama Rao, 72, Is Dead; Star Status Infused His Politics. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe